So, according to the motion filed on the 1st of may, which is what I assume the tweet is referencing, I think there are two things of note.
1st: When cornered at the McDonald’s, the police questioned him about his name and requested his id, then proceeded to ask him a bunch of different questions regarding his identity, the validity of his id, wether he had lied about his name, and any travel to New York. They, at no point at the McDonald’s, ever read him his Miranda rights, even after informing him that he was under investigation and detaining him, even after one officer told the others to read him his rights.
2nd: They moved his backpack to another table before informing him he was under investigation. They did not have a warrant to search his backpack, and given that it was far beyond his reach, and he was handcuffed when they began searching it, there was no reason to suspect anything in it would have been dangerous to the officers on sight. They found a computer chip in the bag while he was still inside, and did not “find” the loaded gun until he was outside and being driven to the precinct. After “finding” the gun, the officer searching the bag stated that they were searching it to make sure there “wasn’t a bomb or anything in here”. The motion I’m referencing suggests that this statement was a hasty attempt to justify the warrantless search post facto.
Defense attorneys claim that some of the body cam footage is missing including 20 seconds of when Mangione was being questioned by a police when an officer placed his hand over his body cam and the 11 minutes during which the backpack was transferred from the McDonalds to the Altoona Police Department Precinct. The motion goes on the state that once that officer’s body cam footage resumes, it shows her immediately re-opening and closing the backpack compartments she already searched and then opening the front compartment of the backpack “as if she was specifically looking for something. Instantly, she ‘found’ a handgun in the front compartment.”
As for the 2nd, the gun was only “found” after the body cam had been off for 11 minutes, and only at the police station.
So, according to the motion filed on the 1st of may, which is what I assume the tweet is referencing, I think there are two things of note.
1st: When cornered at the McDonald’s, the police questioned him about his name and requested his id, then proceeded to ask him a bunch of different questions regarding his identity, the validity of his id, wether he had lied about his name, and any travel to New York. They, at no point at the McDonald’s, ever read him his Miranda rights, even after informing him that he was under investigation and detaining him, even after one officer told the others to read him his rights.
2nd: They moved his backpack to another table before informing him he was under investigation. They did not have a warrant to search his backpack, and given that it was far beyond his reach, and he was handcuffed when they began searching it, there was no reason to suspect anything in it would have been dangerous to the officers on sight. They found a computer chip in the bag while he was still inside, and did not “find” the loaded gun until he was outside and being driven to the precinct. After “finding” the gun, the officer searching the bag stated that they were searching it to make sure there “wasn’t a bomb or anything in here”. The motion I’m referencing suggests that this statement was a hasty attempt to justify the warrantless search post facto.
As for the 2nd, the gun was only “found” after the body cam had been off for 11 minutes, and only at the police station.
No one will ever convince me that the weapon they “found” wasn’t drenched in Central Park pond water.
Or the trunk of a squad car
Or already in the evidence locker.